Think about a relationship you have — say a boyfriend, a husband, a wife, a significant other. If they promised that they were going to be faithful and you caught them in bed with somebody else, and they said they would never do it again, they promised up and down, then you found them in bed again with somebody else, how many times would that have to happen before you didn’t believe them?
Chances are maybe two, three times at most? For most of you, it might just be the first time.
Now imagine you have a friend who said, “I’m going to take you to work. I’m going to pick you up and take you to work,” and they never showed. Then they said it again, and once again, they never showed. How many times would they have to do that before you stopped believing them?
Guess what? The real question is how much do you trust yourself? I lived a perpetual lie. I used to eat salads at weddings and try to keep up a façade that I was doing the right thing, and then I’d go home and gorge on a half-gallon of ice cream. Or I’d say, “Oh, yeah, I miss going to the gym,” and that never happened.
I look back at pictures of myself, and I realize the only person I was lying to was me. There were two keystone pieces of me losing this weight and trying to keep it off. One is acceptance. I had to accept where I really was so I could make a plan of action to get out of it.
Second, I had to be honest with myself and stop lying. I was only lying to myself. Everyone else could see the evidence of what I was doing. A lot of addicts can kind of hide what their vice is. I couldn’t hide that food was my vice; it was showing up on my body.
Once I was ready to get brutally honest with myself and start from a place of honesty, I was actually able to make a plan to fix it. I have some steps on how I work with my coaching clients and Half Size Me community members on finally getting honest with yourself so you can actually believe what you say. If you say you’re going to do it, you’ll start to believe it.
If you stay in a perpetual place of lying to yourself, you will never achieve anything that you want to achieve. You won’t. If your boyfriend cheats, you can ditch him and get another boyfriend. If your friend doesn’t show up, you can call another friend.
But when you’re the only person who can work out, eat less and move your body in a productive way, how are you going to get the job done if you don’t believe in yourself? If you don’t even believe the words as they are coming out of your mouth?
I want you to be able to be truthful with the most important person in your life: you. If you are most honest with yourself, then you can actually achieve what it is you want to achieve.